Derail the Calm and Consistent
by Kuro49
Summary: Faint Erik/Charles. This is for the fire you can't start and the relationships you can't fix.


Because I still can't decide whether I want her to read this. But if you do see this: Happy Birthday, I hope you are well. Because I only know how to write Erik and Charles, none of all your other interests. Like usual, I don't own anything.

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**Derail the Calm and Consistent**

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The world has its moments.

And so does its inhabitants.

There is this and then there is that. Charles Xavier has long since accepted the fact that there are people broken beyond his fixing and people with pasts he can never heal. He tries to think that he has done more good than bad. Still, when the X-Men returns from another mission to interject (because ruin doesn't sound like something Charles does) with Magneto's plans, he regrets all that there is.

Because that man is not Erik Lehnsherr, he barely even resembled Magneto (or at least the one that has emerged from the shell of a submarine he single-handedly brought up from the depths of the sea) at this point.

No, that isn't him. And he can't reach out when there is that much metal between them.

000

Erik takes the initiative when it comes to things like these. There is no longer a telepathic connection between them and they are mere men in the face of another exchange of ready-cut words.

"Don't send children out at me, Charles."

And Erik almost seems disappointed like he wants Charles to attack him instead, just so he can rightfully fight back and not feel the guilt that piles and piles in the face of the man that has saved him from death years and years ago.

"They are not children." Charles insists but he sees it so clearly, the boys and girls he has forced into men and women. His mission blurs, his optimism dims but it always feels this way when Erik is so close by.

"This time I went easy on them."

"You broke ribs and arms and made your _fellow_ mutants bleed, Erik."

He doesn't imagine he will get through to him but this has passed the point of kindness.

"And next time they'll die."

Charles doesn't want to hear anymore. (He knows what he can do, he also knows he won't be proud if he does carry out the execution.)

And so he doesn't reach out to lift that helmet from his head.

000

This is about conversation.

And not understanding, this is also about saying all the wrong things at all the right times. He is just like that. Trying to soothe but hurting with intentions with both vague and deliberate methods. He has done this too many times.

"_They are just men following orders."_

He tears open bloody scars and grabs at all the pained nerve endings right there and then. He is surprised Erik doesn't just direct all the missiles at his head instead. And despite all the contradictions in his standpoint, Charles knows that this is love.

And all the hurting and trying he is doing right now is based on that. Still, the ocean breeze is cold even if what happens next he knows will never change.

Only, the fire in their hearts will still burn bright beneath a blue sky that they will always share.

000

They are civil and polite and perhaps that is the worst they can do to each other.

Because they have been angry and annoyed and _affectionate_ towards the other that this sort of unfamiliarity is almost like a sharp slap to the face. They are not strangers but it feels like it when he is sitting in his wheelchair (the one he has put him in) and he still has that obnoxious helmet shielding him from him.

"Charles. Don't tell me I didn't warn you."

They always speak of business but the personal bits always slip up.

And there really should be an easier way to do this.

"I am aware of exactly of what you said. But that doesn't mean I won't stop you. You have your ways and I have mine's."

"And they should never cross." (_You should never have saved me_ is another way he could have put it but he is trying a hand at being nice.) And on some levels, Magneto doesn't like to play villain but somehow everything he does just end up being wrong and destructive.

Or maybe he is just comparing himself to Charles again.

"We have crossed each other's paths too many times already, Erik. That isn't ever going to change unless one of us stops."

He doesn't apologize for the humans he's killed or the mutants he has hurt with each hand he shows. But he does warn Charles of the fire he is playing with and he does tell Charles to stop fighting him and that might be an apology even the world, on its knees and begging and praying with tears in its eyes, will never get from a man like him.

"You should have left me to die."

Erik says when he stands up to leave. Because he is a horrible person and maybe this is just another way of gaining a fraction of comfort for the days ahead.

"You know I can never, my friend."

Charles may be playing along or may be this is just the truth he has always wanted to tell.

XXX Kuro

I am still not too clear on the time zones, but it's the 28th here and I will always consider you as my pyro.


End file.
